Democracy - Softcover

Frayn, Michael

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0413773825 ISBN 13: 9780413773821

Publisher: Methuen Drama, 2003

Synopsis

Three political parties, in and out of bed with each other like drunken intellectuals, fifteen warring cabinet ministers, and sixty million separate egos. All making deals with each other and breaking them. All looking round at every moment to see the expression on everyone else's face. All trying to guess which way everyone else will jump. All out for themselves and all totally dependent on everyone else. Not one Germany. Sixty million separate Germanies. The tower of Babel!Set in West Germany in 1969, DEMOCRACY follows Willy Brandt as he begins his brief but remarkable career as the first left-of-centre Chancellor for nearly forty years. Always present but rarely noticed is Gunter Guillaume, Brandt's devoted personal assistant - and no less devoted in his other role, spying on Brandt for the Stasi. Published to tie in with major new production at the Royal National Theatre directed by Michael Blakemore starring Roger Allam, Conleth Hill, Nicholas Blane, Jonathan Coy, Christopher Ettridge, Paul Gregory, Glyn Grain, Steven Pacey and David Ryall.

About this title

About the Author:

Michael Frayn's work for the stage includes Alphabetical Order, Make and Break and Noises Off, all of which received Best Comedy of the Year awards, while Benefactors was named Best Play of the Year. His other works include Democracy (National Theatre and West End prior to Broadway) and Copenhagen (winner of numerous awards including the Evening Standard and Critics' Circle Best Play Awards 1998). He has translated Chekhov's four last plays and is also a novelist and recipient of the Whitbread Prize for Best Novel for Spies.

Review:

“The most intelligent and gripping new English drama since Frayn's last stage outing with Copenhagen. A first-rate spy story and . . . a piece of rare ambition.” ―Charles Spencer, The Daily Telegraph

“Anyone who mourns the disappearance of leaders with real civility and magnetism--or of topical dramas with the same attributes--will be buoyed by [this] extraordinary play . . . Democracy is not another game of Cold War cat-and-mouse. It's really a play about loyalty, one that, in a satisfying way, ends up testing ours.” ―Peter Marks, The Washington Post

“[Democracy] achieves something close to impossible. It fascinates you with the ins and outs, ups and downs, of German politics: not in the Hitler era, not in the chaos of the 1920s, but in the supposedly boring 1970s.” ―Benedict Nightingale, The New York Times

About this edition

• Publisher: Methuen Drama
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0413773825
• ISBN 13: 9780413773821
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 144